


Fresco

by playwithdinos



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4531359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playwithdinos/pseuds/playwithdinos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There are echoes of her in his frescoes...</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Ashanna Lavellan teaches Solas to play a Dalish game when she has a moment to spare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fresco

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Destiny_Apocalypse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destiny_Apocalypse/gifts).



> Gift for the lovely [destinyapostasy](http://destinyapostasy.tumblr.com/) as a thanks for drawing my Inquisitor! Featuring her Ashanna Lavellan and [based off this lovely drawing of Solas and Ashanna playing a game together](http://destinyapostasy.tumblr.com/post/125546634017/still-bitter-we-never-got-any-kiss-wheneverhang). The game is a variation on Mancala, for those interested.

There are echoes of her in his frescos. There, the curve of a wolf’s neck mirrors the place her hip and waist meet, there a ray of light follows the subtle sweeping line of her thigh. Somewhere else, the particular shape of her smile, the colour and pattern of her freckles, the shine of her eyes.

                Watching her brows furrowed in concentration now, he wonders where he might imitate their shape in secret, to preserve on the walls of the rotunda through the ages.

                “This was supposed to be relaxing for you,” he tells her, and Ashanna’s eyes dart up to meet his.

                _Indomnitable focus_ , he teased her once. But his heart lightens at the sight of her sheepish smile, the softening of her features.

                They sit in a secluded corner of Skyhold, she cross-legged and leaning forward over their game board, he lounging back and feigning disinterest at the subject of her perusal. Their board is a piece of paper with a number of circles and lines scrawled on it, covered with a variety of small odds and ends gathered from around Skyhold that make up their game tokens. Solas touched hers all with a dot of bright red paint, and his are bare.

                “It is,” she protests, tucking the curtain of her hair behind her ear. She looks down at the lines of the game scrawled on paper, and when she glances up at him again it’s with a coy smile. “And you said you weren’t familiar with _sileal’ghi’mya._ ”

                She moves her tokens to the next space on the paper—hastily drawn circles in the charcoal he uses for sketching. Her fingers are deft and the movement is subtle as she holds his gaze, and her eyes do not waver from his as she draws her hand into her lap.

                “I was not familiar with the name,” he admits. He leans forward, drawing his left leg close to balance himself, propping an arm up on his left knee as he considers her face instead of the board. “Through the Fade, however, I watched as a noble of Arlathan challenged another to a bout. It was...” he tilts his head to the side. “Fascinating.”

                She hums in thought. “I didn’t think a game of passing seeds or...” she glances down at their board, “bits of broken door hinge would attract your attentions.”

                His breath escapes him in a soft echo of a laugh. He lowers his gaze to the board to move two of his pieces—one broken clasp for a shoe, one perfectly spherical stone. With an air of indifference, nothing in the movement giving away the calculation behind it.

                “As the spirits remember it,” he tells her, his voice slipping low, “their board was not a slip of paper, but the back of the woman they loved. And the pieces were her freckles, the envy of the greatest beauties of Arlathan.”

                “Flatterer,” she says, trying to sound unimpressed. But her voice is warm, her smile pleased, and she raises a hand unconsciously to touch the dark freckles dusting her cheeks. “It sounds painful.”

                “Perhaps they spoke metaphorically, and the spirits in question failed to make the distinction. Or,” he says, his voice pitching lower still, “Perhaps they did not play this game at all; perhaps the board was still her bare skin, and the pieces something else entirely.”

                She exhales, slowly, and his eyes trace the lines of her expression, the heat in her eyes, the brief flash of tongue he catches between her teeth before her lips close into a smile, private, warm.

                Perhaps, he thinks, as she ducks her head to examine the board once more, he will find a way to preserve that single moment through the ages; but perhaps in his memory, as he finds that he does not wish to share it with any but her.


End file.
